A Twitter trifecta: in the courtroom, on the job hunt, philosophy

Three great things to read today about Twitter I'd like to point you to. In no particular order, here we go:

Kudos to Lawyers Weekly for this solid article (and super illustration by Jeremy Bruneel) about "Twitter in the courtroom."

While keeping a light touch, author Luigi Benetton investigates the use of Twitter at the trials of Mayor Larry O'Brien here in Ottawa (by Ottawa Citizen reporter Glen McGregor) and of some Bandidos motorcycle gang members in London, Ontario (by London Free Press reporter Kate Dubinski).

To quickly summarize comments by litigator Daryl Cruz , law library guruette, social media know-much and cool gal Connie Crosby, and Internet law guru Michael Geist:

• Daryl Cruz: “Six months ago, we probably wouldn’t have had this conversation because it wouldn’t have crossed anybody’s mind... Using new technologies to provide information about a public event can be helpful, but you can’t forget about the countervailing issues...Evidence in a courtroom takes time to assume a real shape,” he says. “Real-time sound bites are likely to bear no relation to the sum of the evidence of the witness after a lengthy time on the stand...Reporters who sit in the courtroom and do not live blog take notes and listen to the whole sequence of events. They get to understand the sum total of the evidence before they prepare reports."
  
• Geist: no big deal. “Nobody would question the right of the public to attend the trial; nobody would question a reporter taking notes at a meeting. Twitter is nothing more than taking notes, with faster dissemination...If your local newspaper made mistakes every day, it wouldn’t be your local newspaper for long. If somebody Twittering a trial regularly makes errors, people simply will not follow that person...Any steps taken to increase the level of transparency are typically good things. I think we’ll see more Twittering take place in government hearings, events that are nominally open but which few people attend, events that don’t take place behind closed doors but which typically don’t get much attention.”
• Crosby: trained journalists are less likely to OMIK (open mouth, insert keyboard). “[Twitter] doesn’t give a lot of room for clarifying context and giving facts...Journalists will often fact-check with lawyers during breaks ...I’m pro-citizen journalism, but there’s a lot to be said for the training a journalist has.

Second: This morning's Globe and Mail explores the relationship between "Sweet tweets, sweet job leads." for older workers who aren't 'digital natives.' Some interesting case studies. My pick for the 'money quote:'

"I think one of the key attributes that somebody of that age can use to differentiate themselves is to demonstrate a comfort zone for using those tools and actually using them. Any prospective employer nowadays, I think they pretty much are looking for those signals of knowledge and awareness."

-- Michelle Corsano, President of Burst Technology Marketing

And finally, a great blog post from Brian Solis (and there's an equally good one above it) on Twitter. Solis brings together a TON of data on Twitter to come to this conclusion:

Right now, Twitter and its potential for progress is limited only by the information, direction, and education provided by Twitter itself in order to demonstrate and teach existing and new users how to truly use and take advantage of this new and dynamic information ecosystem. While Twitter's API is empowering third-party developers to create Twitterverse of exciting, useful, and entertaining applications that enhance the Twitter experience, it can not outsource nor rely upon the community to teach the world how to use Twitter. Providing recommendations on people to follow doesn't really help at all.

In the meantime, Twitter will continue to flourish as a rapid-fire broadcast network until people learn how to communicate, understand how to participate and what to contribute, and eventually ease into a collaborative, two-way meaningful dialogue that represents Twitter's greatest promise.

I'm not sure I agree with him. But the data alone is worth going through.

Read and enjoy...

Ciao,
Bob.